Economist served as
UH-Manoa chancellor

Wytze Gorter, the first permanent chancellor at the University of Hawaii-Manoa and a longtime advocate for higher education in Hawaii, died Sept. 14 in Kaneohe. He was 90.

UH President Thomas Hamilton recruited Gorter from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1964 to come to UH-Manoa as dean of the graduate school.

He is credited with improving the quality of faculty and with increasing research at the campus.

In 1972, Gorter became the first permanent chancellor of UH-Manoa. He resigned in protest in 1974, when the Board of Regents bypassed the Manoa administration to grant a contract extension to then-football coach Larry Price.

Gorter felt the regents were setting a precedent in going around the administration to negotiate with Price.

"I thought he handled it as a gentleman," said former UH President Fujio Matsuda, who was an administrator at Manoa at the time. "I admired him for what he did."

Matsuda said Gorter was "a wonderful person and did a lot for the university."

Gorter graduated in 1936 from Stanford University, where he played varsity basketball and met his wife of 66 years, Barbara Holmes Gorter.

Gorter was a basketball coach and economics instructor at Stanford.

He completed his Ph.D. in economics in 1948 and became a professor and chairman of the economics department at UCLA before coming to UH-Manoa.

"He loved to teach," said son-in-law Tyrone Reed. "He loved the entire university concept and higher education and how to teach it and what was the most honest and efficient way to do it."

After his resignation as chancellor, Gorter returned to the economics department at UH-Manoa and remained active as a member of the Faculty Senate and, at one point, as president of the faculty union, the University of Hawaii Professional Association.

In January 1980 he was named executive director of the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, a state agency attached to UH that supports research and training programs.

He retired on Jan. 1, 1984, but remained active in higher education, serving as a founding member of the Faculty Retirees Association at UH-Manoa, a member of the board of directors at Hawaii Pacific University and acting president of Chaminade University.

He was also a former president of the Friends of the East-West Center.

"Everybody was always coming to ask him, 'Would you chair this?' or, 'Would you head this up?'" Reed said.

"He loved Hawaii. This was home for him," he added.

Gorter devoted much of the last few years to caring for his wife, Barbara, who died July 6.

He is survived by son Christopher, daughter Ann, two grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Services are private.

Donations are suggested to the Wytze and Barbara Gorter Scholarship Fund at the University of Hawaii Foundation, which will support scholarships for economics students at UH.